Keywords:
Stimming – a human need, a means of self-expression, communication, or meeting sensory needs.

Gross motor movements – using large muscles to make whole body movements

Fine motor movements – using small muscles (in this context in the hands and fingers) to make precise movements e.g. using stim tools, handwriting.

AAC – alternative augmentative communication. Any form of communication other than speech.

Apraxia – often described by nonspeakers as a brain and body disconnect or motor planning disability. Apraxic people find it difficult or impossible to coordinate the muscles used to speak, this often means difficult coordinating movement generally.

What does stimming mean to you? The words that spring to mind for me are: freedom, self-expression, energy, and joy – or at least these are the feelings I want to evoke. The act of using movements and sounds to express ourselves as humans is often intuitive , think jumping up and down when excited or dancing around the kitchen to your favourite stim song. This is often something that just happens instead of being consciously processed. So what does that mean for those of us who are physically disabled and as a result cannot move freely? Well, the answer is that it can be quite complicated to access stimming that does feel freeing. In this blog I aim to explore the barriers to stimming for physically disabled people and why the limitations of our bodies should not inhibit our expression.

As a physically disabled autistic person (a wheelchair user), I have often craved freedom from stimming. The rhythms of rocking back and forth, the sensation of spinning, these are great ways to express big feelings or gain much needed sensory feedback. However, a lot of attention is often given to gross motor movements which are completely inaccessible for both me and many of my physically disabled peers. There may be some mention of more subtle stims, but the emphasis is usually on actions that can be observed by others. This makes lots of sense as stims are often a great indicator of how someone is feeling. Even more subtle stims such as using fidget rings or cubes are not accessible to people like me who have very limited dexterity, whilst these tools are popular, they often require a lot of fine motor skill. 

Despite the popularity of these tools, humans have always been stimming: you do not need an object to stim with! This was confirmed by spending lots of time around my physically disabled peers, many of whom used lots of vocal stims to communicate with familiar people. I love stimming by making noises – there’s something quite visceral about it, sounds can convey what words never will. Vocal stimming is great and is often accessible to nonspeakers including apraxic autistic people, but what about the stimming needs of physically disabled people who can’t vocalise at all? Many of my disabled peers use AAC devices with their eyes and selecting the same word or phrase repeatedly may not be a glitch in the software, but instead an intentional and fun way to stim! Stims are often very personal and meaningful to us as individuals  – not everything communicated by a nonspeaker is intended to be received by someone else, maybe selecting the same button over and over again just brings them joy!

Stimming is for us, not for anyone else so it’s important that it reflects our own needs and internal feelings. In autistic spaces that I am part of; stimming is sometimes discussed as something that is done in the privacy of your own home or with particular safe people away from the judgemental eyes of others. As a physically disabled person, privacy is not easily attainable. Having high support needs means I always need someone with me, and this is also true for many of my peers. Needing other people to help you meet your sensory needs or stim, shouldn’t be a barrier, but a chance for collaborative exploration!

Working together with a support person to discover and meet your sensory needs is an ongoing process, dependent on many factors that are unique to us as disabled people. These may include: energy levels, range of movement, environment and many more. It is not a matter of simply ticking boxes in a checklist. There are many ways a support person could assist you to experiment with different ways of gaining sensory feedback, regardless it is natural to want to stim by yourself – without the uncertainty that comes with the continuous need to explain yourself to other people. Stimming independently may have to be more passive e.g. listening to music, watching rain fall, being entranced by the reflections of a projected scene on your bedroom wall. Either way if it works for you, then that’s all that matters.

For those of you who want to be able to stim more actively, it’s important to think about using minimum energy for maximum effect! Being physically disabled can mean that our energy is limited and stimming should recharge our battery, not deplete it. Thinking about specific senses one at a time may be useful (particularly if it takes time to communicate with your support person) e.g touch, taste, or smell. Alternatively if you are a sensory seeker, you may enjoy the kaleidoscope of input all at once! Although stimming is universal, it has become a much-celebrated part of autistic culture, a way for us to reclaim language used about us not by us. This appreciation shows up in many ways and can include forming our own collection of treasured stim objects. Valuing important items is obviously not exclusive to the autistic community and having a dedicated space for stim tools may be something you want to consider too. Specific textures/fabrics, smells, sounds and visual stims all collated in one place (made accessible by a support person) can be an easy and energy saving way to express yourself when you want and need to.

As a physically disabled person, a lot of focus is often on what I cannot do. This is to be expected, however human expression has never been and never will be about the limitations of our bodies but instead the willingness to open our minds to different ways of being.

I hope this blog has helped you think about adaptive stimming for you personally or the people you support. Ultimately, accessing stimming is about finding ways to work with the body you have, not against it. Expression is for all!

References:

Apraxia